Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Wild, Wild, West


Well we finally nailed the trip I had been scheming for some time. Two weeks in Utah and Colorado. The first week was spent kayaking Canyonlands National Park and the second was spent mountain biking various epic mountain trails.

For the Kayak part, my son, Jake and I drove our vehicles west. We were joined by Jill and Jeff, two fellow SKOAC kayak buddies. I had the Trailblazer with the SKOAC trailer and 4 kayaks and Jake had his Jetta TDI. We had a fabulous trip just getting there. We met and stayed with Jill’s friends, hiked, 
 
 
 
 
hit a brew pub and saw Brandi Carlisle at Red Rocks. From there we traveled through the Rockies to pick up Jan at the Grand Junction airport.

Then our bigger adventure began. Tex’s Riverways shuttled us to the top of Canyonlands National Park. They dropped us in at the Mineral Bottoms on the Green River. We spent the next 5 days paddling and floating the river on down to the Colorado River. We saw a good amount of wild life and the like with fresh cat prints on our sand bar the night Jake slept out under the stars. Floating the canyons of the Green river was quite a sight. The outfitter cautioned us about the wind and we did get some sand blasting at times. It was also hot, with 105 in the shade and 84 in the water. We spent some quality lounging time in the water. Spotting Anasazi cliff dwelling on the cliff as we floated by was quite a thrill. When we got to the Colorado R., Tex’s jet boat came to pick us up. They strapped our boats to the upper rack and jetted us at 35 mph up the Colorado. Kayak Pictures.

The kayakers all headed home and three mountain bike buddies, Mike, Matt and Joe joined me at Fruta CO. We biked Fruta, Moab’s Slick Rock, Phil’s World in Cortez CO and spent a number of days biking the epic Durango area. My cousin Mike put us up for the week and Mike and Meg were fabulous hosts. We did two - two car shuttle rides where we put one car at the lower elevation and the other hauled us all to the top of the mountain. We did Hermosa/Dutch creek and Engineer Mountain with this method. We spent one day at Mesa Verde doing the tourist thing and saw some serious cliff dwellings. Mtb Pictures.

QOD: The Creative Adult is the Child that survived. Ursula K. Le Guin
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